Chinese chip design company Brite raises $50m
Chinese integrated circuit (IC) design company Brite Semiconductor, has raised a RMB350 million ($50 million) Series D round led by Haitong Securities and sector specialist Sunic Capital.
Oriza Hua – the IC industry investment platform of Oriza Holding, Xiaomi Industrial Fund, Volcanics Venture, Teda Holdings, and GP Capital – also participated. Previous backers include Gobi Partners, Norwest Venture Partners, Infotech Ventures, and Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp (SMIC). Total funding to date comes to about $82 million since inception in 2008, according to AVCJ Research.
Brite and SMIC have co-developed a platform that offers a one-stop service, including project evaluation and consulting from the design stage to manufacturing for IC customers. Brite says its intellectual property is also widely adopted in consumer electronics, industrial internet-of-things, and wearable devices. Proceeds from the latest round will be used to further develop the platform.
According to Jiutang Pan, a partner of Xiaomi Industry Fund, customized chips have become one of the most important means for downstream manufacturers to achieve product differentiation and improve supply chain security.
Semiconductors has attracted increasing investor interest in recent years amid US-China trade tensions. This has been supported by the launch of the China’s Star Market, which is seen as providing a new potential path to exit in the sector.
Meanwhile, Chinese manufacturers are increasingly looking so domestic suppliers. For example, Vertilite, a company that develops lasers used in facial identification backed by Glory Ventures, has become Huawei’s largest supplier. Huawei also recently invested in the company.
Other companies in the IC design space receiving PE and VC investment in recent weeks include Yunyinggu, a supplier to flat screen display manufacturers, Lightelligence, an optical chip manufacturer, and Eswin Technology, which concentrates on display, wireless connectivity, and artificial intelligence data processing.
In June, Biren Technology, a nine-month-old smart chip designer, raised RMB1.1 billion in Series A funding led by Qiming Venture Partners, IDG Capital and Walden International. This followed a $119 million extended Series D for ASR Microelectronics that valued the consumer electronics chip specialist at $1.6 billion.
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